Last calendar marked just the second time that Apple shares have retreated on an annual basis since the iPhone was released in 2007. Photo: Xaume Olleros

Apple's quarterly results are due after Wall Street closes on Tuesday (8am AEDT on Wednesday) They come as sentiment has once again soured towards the stock, which has fallen by nearly 19 per cent over the past six months.

The iconic device giant was conspicuously absent from the so-called "FANG" trade - an investor stampede into a handful of fast growing tech stocks (Facebook, Amazon. Netflix and Google/Alphabet) last year.

In fact, 2015 was just the second time Apple shares have gone backwards on an annual basis since the iPhone was released in 2007.

Why? In short people are worried that the iPhone, easily Apple's biggest product (accounting for more than two third revenue) has peaked. That combined with concerns about Apple's dependence on China, where economic conditions are shaky at best, and downright scary at worst, seems to have really spooked people.

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Last week, after companies in Apple's supply chain cut their own revenue projections, Credit Suisse cut its iPhone shipment forecasts for the current (March) quarter to 48 million units, down 22 per cent from the corresponding quarter last year. Alarmingly, the bank expects Apple's total revenue in 2016 to shrink compared to last year, which would be the first time that has happened since 2001.

Remember, Apple's biggest new product launch of recent times, and a potential source of new growth, the Apple Watch, has underwhelmed, while its most tantalising potential product expansion, the Apple Car, is still in the rumour phase, a long way from becoming reality. iPad sales are shrinking and chief executive Tim Cook himself has questioned why anyone would need a PC anymore.

Now Apple is being described as a value stock - no compliment in the growth-obsessed world of tech.

Yet the company and its supporters might actually do well to embrace this label.

Apple, which is sitting on a mountain of more than $US200 billion ($288 billion) in cash, is currently valued at just 11 times this year's estimated earnings. That is pretty low compared to the aforementioned FANGs, all of which are trading on high double digit earnings multiples (Netflix and Amazon were literally off the charts, hence excluded from the graphic). And pretty low compared the broader US market, which is trading on a multiple of 17 times earnings, according to Bloomberg.

According to Montaka Global fund manager Andrew Macken, there's effectively no growth currently priced into Apple's valuation. "We just think that that is absolutely absurd," he tells Fairfax Media. "You don't have to believe a lot about Apple to draw the conclusion that it is cheap."

For the record, consensus expectations are for Apple to report net income of $US18.2 billion, or $US3.23 per share.

Ultimately, either Apple's stock price is perfectly primed for another better than expected result, or it really is about enter a new era of prolonged disappointment. We won't have to wait very long to find out.